


I'm In the Ruins Too, I Know the Wreckage So Well (Come On Over Here)

by EveryDayBella



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Aftermath, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, M/M, boyfriends being soft, cash is Jamie's dog, cash to the rescue, i don't make the rules, when the world is not soft to them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 10:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16616825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveryDayBella/pseuds/EveryDayBella
Summary: Cash whines, his ears flat against his head as he noses against Tyler’s hand. Tyler’s eyebrows knits together. He has been around dogs for long enough to know the signs when they’re trying to tell him something. And Cash is worried about something.“What’s wrong boy?” Tyler askes, anxiety spiking his voice. “Huh?”Cash barks and runs from the bed to the door and stops, looking expectantly back at Tyler.





	I'm In the Ruins Too, I Know the Wreckage So Well (Come On Over Here)

**Author's Note:**

> I had a bad day and this made me feel better. 
> 
> Thanks to Ali for reading. 
> 
> Title is from What If This Is All the Love You're Ever Gonna Get by Snow Patrol

Tyler is having a pleasant dream about warm sandy beaches and Jamie’s teasing fingers when something wet touches his face. He groans, swatted weakly at the intruder, and rolls over to hide his face in the pillow. “Ten more minutes,” he mumbles. Things had just been getting good with dream Jamie. 

 

The cold and wet is back, this time against his neck. Tyler grunts, rolls back over to his back, and opens his eyes. Cash is the only other thing in bed with him. Tyler scratches behind his ears. “Ten more minutes buddy. Let daddy go back to sleep.”

 

Cash whines, his ears flat against his head as he noses against Tyler’s hand. Tyler’s eyebrows knits together. He has been around dogs for long enough to know the signs when they’re trying to tell him something. And Cash is worried about something. 

 

“What’s wrong boy?” Tyler askes, anxiety spiking his voice. “Huh?”

 

Cash barks and runs from the bed to the door and stops, looking expectantly back at Tyler.

 

“Okay, okay, I am coming.” He doesn’t bother grabbing a shirt, just follows Cash as he races down the stairs in his boxers. Hopefully he can take care of whatever Cash’s problem is and then find Jamie and tempt him back to bed. 

 

Cash heads toward the kitchen and Tyler follows stopping dead in his tracks when he sees Jamie braced against the kitchen island, breathing rapidly and eyes shut against the world. Cash sits at his feet and whines while Tyler races into action manhandingling him until he can see Jamie's white face. His eyes pop open, wide and terrified. Tyler’s heart breaks somewhere in his chest. 

 

“It is gonna be okay Jamie.” Tyler cups his hands around Jamie’s cheeks, speaking steadily and slowly in order to give Jaime something to center himself too. “You need to breath okay? In and in out, with me. You can do that.”

 

He fills his lungs with air as deep as he can, holds it, and then breathes out. It takes a few times before Jamie can start echoing it. Tyler grabs one of Jamie’s hands and laces them together over his own chest where Jamie can feel the rise and fall. About the same time as he starts letting oxygen in to his body the tears starts falling across his cheeks. Tyler pushes himself closer till he can feel the tense line of Jamie’s body. 

 

“Hey, whatever it is, it is okay.” Tyler lets his free hand slide around to the back of Jamie’s neck gripping tightly as Jamie tries to sniff back tears. “I’m sorry for whatever caused this, but just let it out okay. You’ll feel better afterward. I promise.”

 

Jamie shakes his head, choking on a laugh turned sob, the hitch in his breathing threatens to derail all the hard work Tyler has already done. “Not your fault.”

 

“Still, I do not like to see you like this. I love you.”

 

“Love you too.” Jamie says like it’s a breath of fresh air. Tyler smiles gently and Jamie finally falls forward into his arms,going slack like all his strings have been cut. Tyler presses his lips into the scratchy short hairs on the side of his head and hums a soft sound. Jamie is trembling, but it isn’t as bad as it had been and the tears have subsided to soft hiccups. 

 

Tyler lets him have a moment and then tries to move them. “Lets go lay down.”

 

He gets a weak nod in return and he has to tow them toward the den with the dogs at their heels. Tyler doesn’t dare try the stairs with Jamie in this state, but the couch in the den at least doesn’t have moving boxes on it and Tyler can work with that. He pushes Jamie onto the couch and then curls up on top like an overgrown cat. Marshall and Gerry settle on the floor, but Cash pops his chin on the couch where he can breath on Jamie. 

 

Tyler laughs lightly, his nose in Jamie’s collarbone. “Told you he is your dog.”

 

It gets a weak chuckle from Jamie and a light rub for Cash.

 

Tyler tries to give Jaime space, knowing that he can’t push him into talking and that he needs  to come down on his own, but all the questions are right on the tip of his tongue. He only wants to know so that he can fix it. Jamie deserves every good thing in the world and Tyler aches with the need to squash every bully in his head the same way he did to Nemeth last year. He knows the best thing he can do is be is there for Jamie and hold him down to the earth while his thoughts float a way. And if that is all that Tyler can do, then he will do it to the best of his ability. 

 

It's a while before Jamie does anything, but the first thing he does is pull the blanket off the back of the coach and use it to cover Tyler’s bare skin. Tyler, who had been trying to supress the shivers, snuggled a little more firmly into Jamie. Trapped between Jamie’s warmth and the blanket is Tyler’s favorite place to be. Jamie’s natural caretaker abilities floating to the surface is not a terrible thing either. 

 

There is a kiss pressed to his still disheveled curls as Jamie curls an arm low around Tyler’s waist. “Sorry.”

 

“It is not your fault.” Tyler lets his fingers trace shapes over the thin material of Jamie’s shirt. “I’ve told you that before.”

 

Jamie snorts.

 

“You wanna talk about it?” Tyler askes tenativilingly, feeling he should but also wanting Jamie to have the space to not if he doesn’t want too.

 

He can feel the shrug underneath him and doesn’t say anything. 

 

“I don't even know. It just came out of nowhere.”

 

“Cash came and told me. Did I tell you that yet?”

 

“He is a good boy.” Jamie says with a fond smile and another firm rub for Cash. 

 

“The best boy.” Tyler then smiles and looks up to find Jamie looking at him, his eyes deep and sad and tired. “Hey, you know who my favorite is right?”

 

“Who?”

 

“You.”

 

Jamie rolls his eyes with a soft chuckle. “Great, now I am being compared to your dogs.”

 

Tyler snickered. “Best boys.”

 

“Shut up.” Jamie sighs. “I am tired.”

 

“Go to sleep. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.” Tyler assures him. It is not long before Jamie’s breaths have evened out and Tyler is willing to follow him into oblivion.

 

* * *

 

It’s much later in the morning before they wake up again. Jamie’s groggy but a little more present than he had been and it's a step in the right direction. Tyler makes them breakfast of omelettes and whatever they have in the fridge. Mostly cheese. Jamie doesn’t do much but watchs as Tyler turns on music, sings and dances at the stove and talks to the dogs about nonsense. They eat at the kitchen with their ankles crossed. They end up splitting a third and it feels almost normal to share food in a lazy, unrushed silence. 

 

Tyler groans in the face of the sink full of dishes. 

 

“I guess we should tackle a couple of those boxes.” Jamie says, but Tyler doesn’t like it. He’s still to pale even if the food has helped return him to life a little bit. Tyler shakes his head. 

 

“Is it the moving?” 

 

“Hum?”

 

“This morning? Is it the moving?”

 

Jamie shrugs but doesn’t deny it. “I guess maybe. We could have picked a better time.”

 

“Blame Nill for dragging my contract out.”

 

Jamie snorts but shakes his head. “I think it's just a little bit of everything.”

 

“I know the season didn’t start the way we wanted it too, but its not that bad. We’ll figure out the scoring problem. Besides we carried them most of that last season. Make someone else do it.”

 

“I am gonna tell the guys you said that.” A first true smile blossomed a cross Jamie’s face and something loosened in Tyler’s chest at the sight. 

 

“Whatever.” Tyler stuck his tongue out and then shrugged. “Okay, no moving today. What are we going to do instead?”

 

Jamie shrugged. “Netflix and chill?” 

 

“Jamie are you trying to seduce me?” Tyler smirked and Jamie blushed. 

 

“Only a little.” Jamie muttered. “But doing nothing sounds really nice too.”

 

“Agreed.” That was all that Tyler wanted, just a little bit of time just him and Jamie and maybe the dogs. “But we are going to starve if we don’t make a grocery run. Feel up to it, or do you just want me too?”

 

“No, that sounds nice too.”

 

Tyler throws together a quick list and they both get dressed to enter the real world. Jamie doesn’t bitch about Tyler driving or his music chooses. They move through the aisles together, close enough to touch and bicker over how to rip a banana is or what flavor of protein powder to stock up on. They grab just enough stuff for their short break and Jamie pays at at the checkout. While he does that Tyler sneaks a treat out at another line and comes back to Jamie without him suspecting a thing. 

 

They get home and put everything away and rather than stay home they decide to take advantage of the chilly moment in November and take the dogs for a walk. It’s their first time exploring their new neighborhood on foot rather than in the car and it feels nice. Jamie takes a risk and traps Tyler’s willing hand in his own. It is a small thing that means almost nothing but it's nice all the same, the feeling that he is where he belongs with the people he belongs with. 

 

The get home and laze around doing nothing more than watching something mindless on the tv. Tyler’s head is pillowed in Jamie’s lap while Jamie’s thick fingers play with his hair. They make dinner together moving around the kitchen with a grace that only comes from having done the same thing a hundred million times. When they eat they sit angled together Tyler’s ankle hooked around Jamie. Jamie is a little quieter than he normally would be but he smiles in the face of Tyler’s stories and laughs in all the right places. He doesn't even complain when Tyler pulls out the chocolate bar he brought, apparently he had earned it. Tyler is forced to agree. 

 

And later that night Tyler rides Jamie slow and sweet until they’re wrung out and breathless in the sheets. He curls against Jamie’s shoulder and lets himself breath and feels Jamie do the same. He knows it doesn’t erase the morning, but rebounding and finding their own peace anyway feels like a kind of victory. 

 

It feels like enough. 


End file.
